The Technicolor Collapse Text: Nahum 2:3-7
Introduction: God's Holy War
We live in a soft and sentimental age. It is an age that wants a God who is a celestial guidance counselor, a divine affirmation machine, a God who would never, ever be caught using martial language. Our generation wants a Jesus with a lamb, but never the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. They want a God who is nice, but not a God who is holy. They want a God of peace, but not a God who is a Man of War. And so, when they come to a book like Nahum, they do not know what to do with it. They either ignore it, or they try to explain it away as some unfortunate vestige of a primitive, Old Testament anger that was superseded by the gentle Jesus of the Gospels.
This is a profound and dangerous error. The God of Nahum is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord who unleashes this poetic torrent of righteous fury against Nineveh is the same Lord who said, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34). The God who is good is also the God who is severe. His goodness and His severity are not in conflict; they are two sides of the same coin of absolute holiness. For God to be good to His oppressed people, Judah, He must be severe to their bloody oppressors, the Assyrians.
Nahum's prophecy is not an angry rant. It is a work of magnificent poetry, a masterpiece of controlled, descriptive judgment. About a century before, Jonah had preached a simple message of repentance to Nineveh, and they had repented. But the repentance did not last. The city had returned to its foundational principles of violence, idolatry, and bloodshed. Assyria was the terror of the ancient world, a brutal empire built on slavery, torture, and intimidation. And here, Nahum the Elkoshite is given a front row seat to watch the divine unraveling of this arrogant superpower. He is not gloating in a sinful way; he is celebrating the justice of God. This is good news. The fall of a wicked city is always good news for the people of God. And the principles laid out here are timeless. God still hates pride, He still hates violence, and He still brings down empires that set themselves against Him.
What we are about to read is a vivid, cinematic description of the final assault on Nineveh. This is not the chaos of men run amok. This is the orderly, terrifying, and beautiful execution of a divine decree. This is what it looks like when God goes to war.
The Text
The shields of his mighty men are colored red, The valiant men are dressed in scarlet, The chariots are enveloped in flashing steel When he is set up to march, And the cypress spears are brandished.
The chariots race madly in the streets; They rush wildly in the squares; Their appearance is like torches; They dash to and fro like lightning flashes.
He remembers his mighty ones; They stumble in their march; They hurry to her wall, And the mantelet is set up.
The gates of the rivers are opened, And the palace is melted away.
So it stands fixed: She is exiled, she is carried away, And her maidservants are moaning like the sound of doves, Beating on their hearts.
(Nahum 2:3-7 LSB)
The Divine Summons to Battle (v. 3)
The vision of the attack begins with a description of the invading army, the army God has mustered.
"The shields of his mighty men are colored red, The valiant men are dressed in scarlet, The chariots are enveloped in flashing steel When he is set up to march, And the cypress spears are brandished." (Nahum 2:3)
The first thing to notice is the color scheme: red and scarlet. This is the color of blood, and it is the color of war. This is not a parade; it is an execution. God is dressing His army for the occasion. The Babylonians and Medes who would eventually take Nineveh are, in the final analysis, God's army. He is the one setting them up to march. They may think they are marching for their own glory or plunder, but they are merely instruments, a divine scalpel in the hand of the Divine Surgeon, preparing to cut out the cancer that was Assyria.
The "flashing steel" of the chariots and the brandished spears communicate an overwhelming sense of power, speed, and imminent violence. This is a picture of terrifying military efficiency. But unlike the Assyrians, whose military might was in the service of their own pride, this army's might is in the service of God's perfect justice. The point is to show that God can out-terrorize the terrorists. The Assyrians built their empire on fear, but now a greater fear has come to their doorstep, and it is arrayed in the colors of divine judgment.
The City's Self-Destruction (v. 4)
The camera, so to speak, now shifts from the attacking army outside the walls to the chaos erupting within the city itself.
"The chariots race madly in the streets; They rush wildly in the squares; Their appearance is like torches; They dash to and fro like lightning flashes." (Nahum 2:4)
Whose chariots are these? These are Nineveh's own chariots. The very instruments of their imperial power have become instruments of their own destruction. In the panic of the siege, with the enemy at the gates, order breaks down completely. The proud Assyrian war machine turns on itself. They are racing "madly," wildly, without purpose or direction. The city that exported chaos to the world is now drowning in it.
The imagery is striking. They look like torches and flash like lightning. This speaks of speed, panic, and fire. The city is beginning to burn, and the polished metal of the chariots reflects the flames as they careen through the public squares. This is a picture of a total societal breakdown. When God judges a nation, He often does so by giving it over to its own internal contradictions. He removes His restraining hand, and the thing simply implodes. Their strength becomes their ruin.
A Futile and Faltering Defense (v. 5)
In the midst of this internal collapse, the Assyrian king makes a desperate attempt to rally his forces.
"He remembers his mighty ones; They stumble in their march; They hurry to her wall, And the mantelet is set up." (Nahum 2:5)
The king calls for his elite troops, his "mighty ones." These are the men who were the stuff of legend, the shock troops of the empire. But notice what happens. "They stumble in their march." Why? Because God is against them. When the Lord of Hosts has determined a city's fall, the most seasoned veterans become clumsy recruits. He introduces confusion, fear, and incompetence into their ranks. The men who once marched arrogantly across the world now cannot even run to their own defensive positions without tripping over their own feet.
They "hurry to her wall," but it is a panicked rush, not a disciplined maneuver. The "mantelet," a portable shield used to protect soldiers during a siege, is set up. They are going through the motions of defense. They are using the best military technology of their day. But it is all for nothing. You cannot build a shield that will protect you from the decree of God. Their efforts are a pathetic pantomime of defense against an enemy who has already defeated them in the heavenly court.
The Decisive Breach and the Dissolving Palace (v. 6)
Now we come to the critical moment of the city's fall. The defense is not overcome by superior force of arms, but by the hand of God working through creation itself.
"The gates of the rivers are opened, And the palace is melted away." (Nahum 2:6)
Historical records confirm that the fall of Nineveh involved a flood. The Tigris River, which ran through the city, was either dammed and released by the invaders or swelled in an unnatural flood, washing away the foundations of the city's massive walls. What the Assyrians saw as a natural disaster was, in fact, a divine act of war. God opened the "gates of the rivers." He commands the waters, and He told them to destroy this city.
And the result is that "the palace is melted away." The palace was the symbolic heart of the empire. It was the seat of the king's power, the center of government, and the storehouse of plundered wealth. The word "melted" here is perfect. It conveys not just the physical destruction of a building by water, but the psychological dissolution of the empire's leadership. Their courage, their resolve, their very identity melts like wax before a fire. The center cannot hold, because God has struck it.
The Fixed Decree of Exile (v. 7)
The battle is over. The outcome, which was never in doubt, is now described in the language of a formal verdict.
"So it stands fixed: She is exiled, she is carried away, And her maidservants are moaning like the sound of doves, Beating on their hearts." (Nahum 2:7)
"So it stands fixed." This is the language of an established, unalterable decree. What Nahum is seeing is not a possibility; it is a certainty. God has spoken, and reality will conform itself to His Word. "She" refers to Nineveh, personified as an arrogant queen. The city that once led entire nations into exile will now be carried away herself. This is the law of the harvest, the principle of divine reciprocity. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Her "maidservants," representing the citizens or the surrounding towns, are left to mourn. But their mourning is not a defiant roar; it is the helpless, sorrowful cooing of doves. It is a picture of utter brokenness and despair. They are "beating on their hearts," a traditional sign of deep grief and anguish. The proud lion of Assyria has been reduced to a flock of frightened doves. God has thoroughly and completely humbled the proud.
The Gospel According to Nahum
This is a terrifying picture. And if we are honest, it is a picture of the judgment that we all deserve. We have all, like Nineveh, built little empires of pride in our hearts. We have all rebelled against the King of heaven. We are all citizens of a bloody city, for our sin nailed the Son of God to a cross. The wrath that flooded the gates of Nineveh is the same wrath that is stored up against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
But the good news, the gospel, is that for those who are in Christ, this judgment has already fallen. On the cross, the floodgates of God's wrath were opened, and they poured out upon Jesus Christ. He was the one whose heart melted within Him. He was the one who was stripped, shamed, and carried away outside the city gate to suffer. He endured the full fury of God's holy war against sin.
Why did He do it? He did it so that the good news for Judah could become the good news for us. The destruction of our enemy, sin, was accomplished through the substitutionary judgment of our King. Therefore, when we read a passage like this, we should do two things. First, we should tremble before the holiness and justice of God, and repent of any Ninevite pride in our own hearts. Second, we should rejoice. We should rejoice that the God who is mighty in battle is on our side. He has fought for us, and He has won. The destruction of Nineveh is a down payment, a historical guarantee, of the final destruction of Babylon the Great in the book of Revelation. And the fall of that wicked city will be the occasion for the wedding supper of the Lamb. God's severity to His enemies is His goodness to His people. And that is very good news indeed.